Quotes: Herzl Speaks His Mind on Issues, Events and Men. 4

319. Our first object is ...the obtaining of sovereignty, assured by international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements.

320. Everything depends on the driving force. And what is that force? The misery of the Jews. …Yet I declare that this force ...is powerful enough to propel a large engine and transport passengers and goods. The engine can be given whatever appearance may be desired.

321. But one thing is to be adhered to inviolably: the agreement [with Turkey] must be based on rights and not on sufferance. Truly we have had enough experience with sufferance and protection which could be revoked at will. Consequently, the only reasonable Course of action is to work for publicly legalized guarantees.

322. We announce our intentions in the light of day ...and we want permission before undertaking a task which would otherwise be the most unjustifiable of all experiments. For the problem is not only to get the people there, but also to keep them there, and that in complete security.

323. Our efforts are directed toward obtaining a charter from the Turkish Government - a charter under the suzerainty of his Majesty the Sultan. Only then, when we shall have this charter containing the necessary legal guarantees, can we begin practical colonization on a large scale.

324. What We want is to make it possible for our unfortunate people to live a life of industry for it is by steady work alone that we hope for our physical and moral rehabilitation. For this reason above all we have undertaken to rally our people around our ideal.

325. Four years ago in speaking of a Jewish nation one ran the risk of being regarded ridiculous. Today he makes himself ridiculous who denies the existence of a Jewish nation.

326. Zionism is a home-coming to the Jewish fold even before it becomes a homecoming to the Jewish land... We are made welcome in the ancient home,that herzl predicts for it is universally known that we are not actuated by an arrogant desire to undermine that which should be revered.

327. A people can be helped only by its own efforts, and if it cannot help itself it is beyond succor. We Zionists want to rouse the people to self-help.

328. Zionism has already brought about something remarkable, heretofore regarded as impossible: a close union between the ultra-modern and the ultra-conservative Jews. ...A union of this kind is possible only on a national basis.

329. One of the first results of our movement ...will be the transformation of the Jewish Question into a question of Zion.

331. There is one question which we have no intention of evading: Have we already obtained a charter, giving us the right to settle in Palestine? We answer clearly and dismally: No. It is quite another question whether we continue to hope, to struggle, to work, to obtain it. To this question we answer with equal clarity and distinctness: Yes!

332. We hold inviolably to our Jewishness, and nevertheless gain nobly disinterested friends. Is that so bad? ...We show ourselves as we are -we simply tell the truth!

333. Those of us who are today prepared to hazard our lives for the cause would regret having raised a finger, if we were able to organize only a new social system and not a more righteous one.'

334. It is true that we aspire to our ancient land. But what we want in that ancient land is a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.

335. Jewry is a tremendous tenement of misery, with branches all over the world... These are the things which we want to change for the better. We believe that salvation is to be found in wholesome work in a beloved land. Work will provide our people with the bread of tomorrow, and moreover, with the honor of the tomorrow, the freedom of the tomorrow.

336. Under present conditions the Jews have three roads before them: one is apathetic submission to insult and poverty; another is revolt, outspoken hostility to an unjust social system. Ours is the third road. We want to amount to a higher grade of civilization, to spread well-being abroad, to build new highways for the intercourse of peoples, and to forge an opening for the coming social justice.

337. Zionism demands a publicly recognized and legally secured homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people. This platform is unchangeable.

338. Our salvation aiming to provide a home for the Jewish people, responds so perfectly to a universal need that it is bound to succeed in the end. To be sure it is not an easy task. ...But this is part of the education which we gain as we proceed. ...As long as a movement is young and frail its leaders have reason to fear that reverses may demoralize their adherents. Those people drop out whose loss is no consequence... But as to those who remain their love for the cause grows greater with each sacrifice.

339. The Jews had, as a matter of fact, long been all along the most ingenious entrepreneurs. It was only our own future that we had never built upon a business basis. Why? Because guarantees had been lacking. But once those guarantees were created we could be no less enterprising in Palestine than elsewhere.

340. Nothing prevents us from being and remaining the exponents of a united humanity, when we have a country of our own. To fulfill this mission we do not have to remain literally planted among the nations who hate and despise us.

341. What the Zionist have hitherto achieved evokes my grateful admiration, but I am a confirmed opponent of infiltration ...My program, far more preferable, is to stop infiltration and concentrate all our strength upon an internationally-sanctioned acquisition of Palestine, To achieve this, we require diplomatic negotiations, which I have already begun, and propaganda on the largest scale.

342. The Jewish nationalist movement is as serious as - nay, more serious than - anti-Semitism. This must now be brought home. Hitherto, the destitute Jews were the anvil, and the anti-Semites the hammer. Woe to those who get caught between hammer and the anvil.

343. The resolution of the Jewish difficulty is the recognition of Jews as a people and the finding by them of a legally recognized home to which Jews in those parts of the world in which they are oppressed would naturally migrate, for they would arrive there as citizens just because they were Jews.

344. Given to Jews their rightful position as a people, I am convinced they would develop a distinct Jewish cult national characteristics and national aspirations - which would make for the progress of mankind.

The Homeland

The physical beauty of the Land, its glorious history as well as necessity turned Herzl to the Promised Land.

345. If anyone thinks that Jews can steal into the land of their fathers, he is deceiving either himself or others. Nowhere is the coming of Jews so promptly noted as in the historic home of the Jews, for the very reason that it is the historic home.

346. The site which is suited for our use is of a peculiar nature. No spot on earth has been so coveted as this, and many nations desired it so intensely that the ardor of their longing dried it up. We, however, believe that this desolate corner of the Orient has, like us, not only a past but a future. On that soil, where so little grows at present, there grew ideas for all mankind. And for that very reason nobody can deny that there is a deathless relation between our people and that land.

347. We have everything in abundance - people, material, plans. We need nothing more than a site!

348. But I am convinced that those Jews who stand aside today with a malicious smile and with their hands in their trousers' pockets will also want to dwell in our beautiful home.

349. We are organizing Jewry for its coming destiny.

350. It is more and more to the interest of the civilized nations and of civilization in general that a cultural station be established on the shortest road to Asia. Palestine is this station, and we Jews are the bearers of culture who are ready to give our property and our lives to bring about its creation.

351. Our return to the land of our fathers, foretold by Holy Writ, sung by poets, desired with tears by the poor of our people, and derided by pitiable mockers, is an event of the greatest political interest to all the powers concerned in the affairs of Asia.

352. Our progress is laborious, yes, and full of affliction ... And if the final victory takes its time in coming to us we shall at least be able to point to a moral gain growing out of the material need of our people. We shall have shown that the Jewish people is still capable of an idealism which defies danger, endures privation, and possesses the infinite patience through which great ends are achieved.

353. Philanthropic colonization is a failure. National colonization will succeed.

354. You know that many have tried their hand at this task which confronts us, animated by good intentions and with great material means at their disposal. But you also know that these attempts came to nothing. Why? Because they all set out from a false premise. They said: In the beginning is money. No! In the beginning is the idea! Money will secure hirelings, but it will not arouse a people. Only an idea will bring this to pass. And it has brought this to pass.

355. The Promised Land is the land of work. On their arrival the emigrants will be welcomed ...with due solemnity ...for the Promised Land must first be conquered. But let these poor people see that they are already at home.

356. Economic distress, political pressure, and social obloquy already drive us from our homes and from our graves. The Jews are already constantly shifting from place to place. A strong current actually moves over the sea to the United States where our presence is also not desired. And where will our presence be desired as long as we have no Homeland of our own.

357. But we wish to give the Jews a Homeland. Not by dragging them ruthlessly out of their sustaining soil, but rather by removing them carefully, roots and all, to a better terrain. Just as we wish to create new political and economic relations, so emotionally we wish to preserve all of the past as sacred. ...It is here that the greatest danger lies to my scheme being regarded as visionary. ...Yet organization can make it rational.

358. But what was not recognized in those days was the beauty of our beloved land... The noted God-given charm of Palestine lay unseen and forgotten for long centuries. Where in the world will you find a country where the springtime is so accessible at all times of the year? Palestine has warm, temperate and cool zones which lie not far apart from each other. God has blessed our land.

359. The shimmering blue waters of Lake Kinneret. The shores and distant heights softly outlined in the spring air. The steep declivities of the Jaulan hills on the further side of the lake, mirrored in its depths. The Jordan flowing into the northern end of the lake. In the distance, the majestic snow-covered Hermon …To the left gentle inlets, lovely beaches, the Garden of Eden indeed.

360. The Jewish people asked nothing of its sons except not to be denied. The world is grateful to every great man when he brings it something; only the paternal home thanks the son who brings nothing but himself.

Uganda Offer

Herzl's position towards the Uganda offer by the British Government in 1903 is frequently misunderstood even today. These two excerpts from his official utterances at the 1903 Zionist Congress make clear his viewpoint.

361. Zion it [Uganda] is not and can never be. It is merely an expedient founded upon a national and political basis. We shall not and cannot give the Jewish masses the marching signal on the strength of this arrangement. It is and must remain an emergency measure...

362. It goes without saying that the Jewish people can have no other goal than Palestine and that, whatever the fate of the proposition may be, our attitude toward the land of our fathers is and shall remain unchangeable... The spirit in which the offer was made must of necessity contribute to improving and alleviating the situation of the Jewish people without our renouncing one iota of the great principles upon which our movement is based.

The Jewish State: Provenance and Prognosis

These excerpts describe the force which brought Herzl to the ideal of the Jewish State; how the idea crystallized in The Jewish State; and how, with characteristic thoroughness, he implemented the idea with a social structure in Altneuland.

363. Our opponents maintain that we are confronted with insurmountable political obstacles, but that may be said of the smallest obstacle if one has no desire to surmount it.

364. Let sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the earth's surface large enough to satisfy our rightful requirements as a nation. The rest we shall manage for ourselves.

365. Those Jews who agree with our idea of a State will attach themselves to the Society... The Society will be acknowledged as a State-creating power: This acknowledgement will practically create the State.

366. Here two countries come under consideration. Palestine and Argentina. In both countries noteworthy experiments in colonization have been made, though on the mistaken principle of a gradual infiltration of Jews. Any infiltration is bound to end badly. Immigration is consequently futile unless we have the sovereign right to continue such immigration.

367. Is Palestine or Argentine to be preferred? The Society will take what is given to it and what is selected by the public opinion of the Jewish people.

368. Palestine is our unforgettable historic home. The very name would be a force of marvelous potency for summoning our people together. ...The sanctuaries of Christendom would be safeguarded by assigning to them an extra-territorial status ...We should form a guard of honor about these sanctuaries... This guard of honor would be the great symbol of the solution of the Jewish Question after 18 centuries of Jewish suffering.

369. Over there the houses offered in exchange will be newer, more beautiful, more modern and more comfortably fitted.

370. The land which the Society of Jews will have secured by international law must naturally be privately owned.

371. When an undertaking involves any risk, the profits should be given freely to those who have borne it ...Financial morality consists in the correlation of risk and profit.

372. The seven-hour day will be the normal work period. …The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company will make new and extensive experiments in this connection which will also benefit the other nations of the world; and if the seven-hour day proves to be practicable, it will be introduced in our future State as the legal and regular working day.

373. Beggars will not be tolerated. Whoever is not prepared to work as a free man will be sent to the work-house. ... We shall seek to bestow the moral satisfaction of work on men of every age and every class; and thus our people will find their abilities again in the land of the seven hour day.

374. The Society has scientific and political tasks: for the founding of a Jewish State presupposes the application of modern scientific methods. We cannot journey out of Egypt today in the primitive fashion of ancient times. …The Society of Jews is the new Moses.

375. I incline to an aristocratic republic. This would satisfy the ambitious spirit among our people. We shall learn from the historic mistakes of others in the same way as we learn from our own; for we are a modern nation and wish to be the most modern in the world.

376. Every man will be as free and undisturbed in his belief or his disbelief as he is in his nationality. And if it should come to pass that men of other creeds and nationalities live among use, we shall accord them honorable protection and equality before the law.

377. We have no flag; we need one. …I would suggest a white flag, with seven golden stars. The white field symbolizes our pure new life; the stars are the seven golden hours of our working day. For the Jews are going to the new land under the sign of work.

378. We want to attach the settlers to the earth, to make them permanent dwellers on the land. They shall live near the soil and by the soil …Each settlement shall administer its own affairs as an agricultural productive association. ...We must hold to these principles when, by God's grave, we obtain the publicly legalized guarantees. ...Thus the foundation can be laid for

that permanent peace for which the Jewish people long so intensely.

379. The men ...worked only seven hours a day but they concentrated all their strength into those seven hours ... Each man knew that he was working for all his comrades; and that all were working for him. They went out singing to their work in the morning and returned singing at night. Our work was like a sudden burst of spring when bare trees turn green over night. And every day increased our momentum.

380. I went ...to the synagogue [in Paris] and found the services once again solemn and moving. Much reminded me of my youth and the Tabakgasse synagogue in Pest. I looked around me at these Paris Jews and saw a family likeness in their faces. Bold, curved noses; furtive and cunning eyes. Was it then, or earlier, that I conceived the plan of writing on "The Situation of the Jews?" Now I remember it was much earlier. I had talked of it last fall in Vienna.

381. I have been pounding away for some time at a work of tremendous magnitude. ...It bears the aspect of a mighty dream. For days and weeks it has saturated me ... it goes with me everywhere, hovers behind my ordinary talk ...overwhelms and intoxicates me. What will come of it is still too early to say. However, I have had experience enough to tell me that even as a dream it is remarkable and should be written down if not as a memorial for mankind, then for my own pleasure and meditation in years to come... If no action comes out of this romancing, a Romance at least will come out of this activity, Title: The Promised Land.

382. When actually did I begin to concern myself with the Jewish question? Probably when it first crossed my path ...It was, I believe, in 1881, or 1882. ..In the course of the succeeding years the question gnawed and tugged at me, it tormented me and rendered me profoundly unhappy. Naturally each passing year wrought a change in my ideas...

383. What dreams, thoughts, correspondence, meetings, activities I shall have to encompass - what disappointments if I fail, what grim struggles if I succeed. They must be seized and committed to paper.

384. At first the Jewish question vexed me bitterly ... [It] lurked for me around every turn or corner. I sighed over it and jeered at it; it made me unhappy but still it never gripped me...

385. I wanted especially to bring the suffering, despised and worthy mass of poor Jews into contrast with the rich. The latter experience nothing of anti-Semitism, although they are actually and mainly responsible for it.

386. Above all I recognized the emptiness and futility to "combat" anti-Semitism. Nothing whatever is gained by declamations consigned to paper or confided in closed circles. The effect, in fact, leans towards the ridiculous.

387. Anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow - and so do I.

388. During our two thousand years of dispersion we have been without political leadership. It has done us more harm than all the persecutions. It has rotted and ruined us, from within. There has been on one... to train us in true manhood. On the contrary ...We ... have been locked up in the ghettos where we degenerated. And when the gates were opened we were suddenly to have all the traits of a free people.

389. We can have but two aims - either to remain where we are or to emigrate somewhere else. For either, we need to educate our people - and by similar methods. For even if we decide to emigrate, it will take a long while before we can reach the Promised Land. Moses needed forty years. In any case, new generations will arise whom we must educate.

390. Whether they remain where they are or whether they emigrate the race must first of all be uplifted - on the spot. They must be made strong as for war, taught the joy of work ... Afterward, let them emigrate - if necessary.

391. I will say to the Kaiser: let our people go. We are strangers here. We are neither permitted nor are we able to assimilate with the people. Let us go! I will procure for you the ways and the means - which I will use for the exodus - whereby no economic catastrophe will follow our departure.

392. With a flag you can lead men where you will - even into the Promised Land. Men live and die for a flag; it is indeed the only thing for which they are willing to die in masses, provided one educates them to it... Vision alone grips the souls of men. And whoever does not know how to deal in visions may be an excellent worthy, practical-minded person, and even a benefactor in a big way; but he will never be a leader of men and no trace of him will remain.

393. Now as before, I hold the whole thing to be a simple idea, a skilful and rational combination that operates, to be sure, with large masses. But purely as an idea there is nothing remarkable about it. "Twice two are four" is, an abstract thought, a proposition neither greater nor lesser than "twice two trillions are four trillions!"

394. How then does a plan differ from a Utopia? I shall tell you in precise language: by the vital force which is inherent in the one and not in the other - a vitality not necessarily perceptible to everyone, but present nevertheless: Utopias entertain but they have no grip...

395. To create a traditional peasantry would be like equipping a modern army with bows and arrows.

396. I educate one and all to be free and strong men, ready to serve as volunteers if necessary. Education by means of patriotic songs, the Maccabaean tradition, religion, heroic stage-plays, honor.

397. I am prepared for everything: the yearning for the fleshpots of Egypt, the dance around the Golden Calf - also the ingratitude of those who have most cause to be grateful.

Language in the State

Three months after the publication of the Jewish State Herzl authorized its Hebrew translator to inform the Hebrew readers that he had come to the conclusion that "the Jewish State could be established only in Palestine and that the national language could be only Hebrew."

398. We shall gradually give up those miserable and stunted jargons, those Ghetto languages which we still employ. They were the stealthy tongues of prisoners. Our national teachers will give due attention to this matter. The language which proves to be of greatest utility for general intercourse will be adopted without compulsion as our principal tongue.

The Envisioned Altneuland

Herzl's imagination and vision, knowledge of technology and understanding of how to' harness it to' social ends came to fruition in Altneuland. There he depicts the restored Jewish Homeland to the last detail. And the marvel is that many of his ideas and institutions have replicas in present-day Israel.

399. Great ships ...lay anchored in the roadstead between Acco and the foot of the Carmel. Behind this fleet... the noble curve of the Bay. At its northern end, the gray fortress walls, heavy cupolas and slender minarets of Acco . "To the south... below the ancient city of Haifa ...splendid things had grown up. Thousands of white villas gleamed out of luxuriant green gardens. All the way from Acco to Mount Carmel stretched what seemed to be one great port. The mountain itself, also, was crowned with beautiful structures.

400. A magnificent city had been built beside the sapphire-blue Mediterranean. The magnificent stone dams showed the harbor for what it was: the safest and most convenient port in the eastern Mediterranean. Craft of every shape and size, flying the flags of all the nations, lay sheltered there.

401. Never in history were cities built so quickly or so well, because never before were 80 many technical facilities available. By the end of the nineteenth century humanity had already achieved a high degree of technical skill. We merely had to transplant existing inventions to this country.

402. What Judah once had, that we can have again! Our old God still lives! And the dream has been fulfilled.

403. ...Politics here is neither a business nor a profession. We have kept ourselves unsullied by that plague. People who try to live by spouting their opinions instead of by work are soon recognized for what they are. They are despised, and get no chance to do mischief. Our courts have repeatedly ruled in slander suits that the term "professional politician" is an insult...

404. Paid officials are not allowed to take part in public discussions ...For filling the honorary positions we have one simple principle: Those who try to push themselves are gently ignored; while... we take great pains to discover real merit in the most obscure nooks.

405. Here, everyone has the right to work - and therefore to bread. This also applies the duty to work. Beggary is not tolerated. Healthy persons caught begging are sentenced to hard labor. We did indeed bind ourselves to the past, as we were bound to do - there was the old soil, the ancient people; but we rejuvenated our institutions.

406. All members of the New Society, men and women alike, are obligated to give two years to the service of the community. The usual thing is to give the two years between 18 and 20 - after completing their studies...

407. Education is free to the children of our members from the kindergarten through the university.

408. A mutualistic order. But please don't imagine a system of cast-iron rules, rigid principles or anything stiff or hard or doctrinaire. ...The whole merit of our New Society is merely that it fostered the creation and development of cooperatives by providing credits and... by educating the masses to make use of them.

409. And yet those methods provide the mean between individualism and collectivism. The individual is not deprived of the stimulus and pleasures of private property while, at the same time, he is able, through union with his fellows, to resist capital domination. The plague, yes, the curse of the poor has been removed - they no longer earn less as producers and pay more as consumers than the rich.

410. But - and this is one of the keys to our prosperity - the obsolete forms of commerce never got a foothold here. We started off with the new era. No man was stupid enough to set up a little shop beside a great bazaar ...Petty trade and peddling no longer promised the least profit. Therefore, when our people entered the new conditions, they did not try to adopt these means of earning a livelihood. We did not want to be a nation of shopkeepers.

412. Moses, in his day, wished to distribute the land so as to ensure the ends of social justice. You will see that our methods serve the purpose none the less. The increases in land values accrue not to the individual owner, but to the public.

413. Those [Arabs] who had nothing stood to lose nothing and could only gain. And they did gain: opportunities to work, means of livelihood, prosperity. Nothing could have been more wretched than an Arab village at the end of the nineteenth century. The peasants' clay hovels were unfit for stables... Now everything is different.

414. The hillsides everywhere were cultivated up to the very summits; every bit of soil was exploited. The steep slopes were terraced with vines, pomegranates and fig trees as in the ancient days of Solomon. Numerous tree nurseries bore witness to the intelligent efforts at a forestation of the once barren tracts. Pines and cypresses on the ridges of the hills towered against the blue sky.

415. They drove through a lovely valley with an amazing profusion of flowers. It was covered with a brilliant carpet of white, red, yellow, blue and green. As the breeze carried the fragrance toward them, the travelers felt as if they had been plunged into a sea of perfume. The valley was the property of a great perfume industry.

416. We stand and fall by the principle that whoever has given two years service to the New Society as prescribed by our rules, and has conducted himself properly is eligible to membership no matter what his race or creed. I say to you, therefore, that you must hold fast to the things that have made us great: to liberality, tolerance, love of mankind. Only then is Zion truly Zion.

417. In the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea there is bituminous lime from which we produce the best asphalt in the world ...the geological character of the region indicated the presence of petroleum. Oil was in fact drilled for, and found. Sulphur and phosphate, too, exist there in inexhaustible quantities. ...Our phosphates compete successfully with those of Tunis and Algiers; and we produce more easily and cheaply than Florida.

418. Nowadays we do not need English coal for plowing the soil of Palestine. We have wires which carry electric power from the Jordan Falls, the Dead Sea Canal, and the brooks of the Hermon and the Lebanon to plows in all parts of the country. Instead of coal we have water.

419. The hydraulic engineers had achieved remarkable things. Regulation of the Jordan had been only one of their tasks. By means of magnificent dams in the valleys... the abundant water supply of the land had been utilized to the full. In the ages when the land had been neglected the rain had been allowed to run off into the ground. Now, by the simple system of dams... every drop of water that fell from the heavens was exploited for the public good. ...Palestine was again the Promised Land.

420. The "Old-New-Land" had been fructified into a garden and a home for people who had once been poor, weak, hopeless and homeless... We had not been crushed by these forces - it has lifted us up.

421. Jerusalem and her hills were still sacred to all mankind, still bore the tokens of reverence bestowed upon her through the ages. But something had been added: new, vigorous, joyous life.

422. The Old City within the walls ...had altered least. The Holy Sepulcher, the Mosque of Omar, and other domes and towers had remained the same; but any splendid new structures had been added. That magnificent new edifice was the Peace Palace. A vast calm brooded over the Old City.

423. Outside the walls the picture was altogether different... Jerusalem was now a twentieth century metropolis ... What was that wonderful structure of white and gold whose roof rested on a whole forest of marble column with gilt capitals? ...That is the Temple!

424. The spell of the Sabbath was over the Holy City. ...All was different now. There was no longer any private dwellings in the Old City; All the buildings were devoted to religious and benevolent purposes ...Moslem, Jewish and Christian welfare institutions. ...In the middle of a great square was the splendid Peace Palace; where international congresses of peace-lovers, and scientists were held, for Jerusalem was now a home for all the best strivings of the human spirit, for Faith, Love, Knowledge.

425. Whatever a man's attitude towards religion he could not escape a reverent mood in the streets of Jerusalem when he saw the quiet throngs exchange Sabbath greetings as they passed.

426. The New Society did not care whether a man sought the eternal verities in a temple, church or a mosque, in an art museum, or at a philharmonic concert.

427. No one can win the yellow ribbon for financial or partisan services ...The color recalls evil times in our national history, and reminds us to be humble in the midst of our prosperity. We have taken the yellow badge of shame that our unhappy revered ancestors were compelled to wear, and made of it a badge of honor.

428. We are a commonwealth. In form it is new, but in purpose very ancient. Our aim is mentioned in the First Book of Kings: "Judah and Israel shall dwell securely, each man under his own vine and fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba."

429. The New Society is not a state, but a large cooperative association. …The cooperative association with an infinite ideal.

430. We see a new and happy form of human society here ...What created it? ...

Necessity!

The reunited people

Knowledge!

Will Power!

The Forces of Nature!

Mutual Tolerance!

Self-confidence!

Love and Pain!

God!

431. The promised Land ...Where at last we can live as free men on our own soil, and where we can die tranquilly in our own homeland. Where we can expect the reward of honor for great deeds; where we shall live at peace with all the world, which we have freed through our own freedom, enriched by our wealth, and made greater by our greatness...

432. I believe it would be a good thing for our cause if the English were forced to leave Egypt. They would then be obliged to seek out another road to India in place of the Suez Canal, which would be lost to them or at least rendered insecure. In that event a modern Jewish Palestine - with a railroad from Jaffa to the Persian Gulf - would resolve their difficulty.

433. When I remember thee in days to come, O Jerusalem, it will not be with delight. The musty deposits of 2000 years of inhumanity, intolerance, and foulness lie in your reeking alleys. The one man who has been present here all the while, the lovable dreamer of Nazareth, has done nothing but increase the hate.

434. If Jerusalem is ever ours, and if I were still able to do anything about it, I would begin by cleaning it up. I would clear out everything that is not sacred ...burn all the non-sacred ruins. ...Then, retaining as much of the old architectural style as possible, would build an airy comfortable, properly sewered, brand new city around the Holy Places.

The Vatican

Herzl's story of his conference with Pope Pius X has remained a relevant factor in history. The Church has hardly changed its policy towards Zionism.

Space prevents the inclusion of material in regard to Herzl's other political ventures.

435. Yesterday I was with the Pope [Pius X] ...He received me standing and held out his hand, which I did not kiss ...I believe this spoiled my chances with him, for everyone who visits him kneels and at least kisses his hand. This hand kiss had worried me a great deal and I was glad when it was out of the way...

436. I briefly laid my request before him. But annoyed perhaps by my refusal to kiss his hand, he answered in a stern categorical manner: "We are unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem - but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ ...The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore, we cannot recognize the Jewish people!”